The Truthiness of Wikiality {Wikipedia puts StephenColbert on notice}
In his continuing quest for truthiness, Stephen Colbert may very well have incurred the wrath of the world’s largest online sorta-encyclopedia.
Then again, maybe he didn’t.
Confused? Well, so is pretty much everyone involved in this rather sordid case of Internet vandalism/ social experimentation, but in the spirit of, well, more truthiness, we’ll try to explain.
“The Colbert Report” is the tongue-in-cheek Comedy Central news show that features the titular humorist spouting off on a variety of political topics in a highly stylized, Bill O’Reilly-esque manner. On Monday’s episode, Colbert praised Wikipedia, the online resource that can be read and edited by anyone with access to a computer, for promoting what he termed “Wikiality” — a sort of pseudo-reality that exists when you make something up and enough people agree with you.
“I’m no fan of reality, and I’m no fan of encyclopedias,” Colbert opined. “I’ve said it before: Who is [Encyclopaedia] Britannica to tell me George Washington had slaves? If I want to say George Washington didn’t have slaves, that’s my right. And now, thanks to Wikipedia, it’s also a fact.”
While he was speaking, Colbert was also typing away on a laptop computer, apparently editing the Wikipedia entry on George Washington to read, “In conclusion, George Washington did not own slaves.”
He also apparently edited the Wiki entry on his own program, replacing a lengthy section on his reference to Oregon as both “the Canada of California” and “Washington’s Mexico” with “Oregon is Idaho’s Portugal” — an example, he said, of Wikiality.
“[On Wikipedia], any user can change any entry,” he said. “Now ‘Oregon is Idaho’s Portugal’ is the opinion I have always held. You can look it up.”
The thing is, Colbert was actually making the changes — or, at least, someone with the username StephenColbert was. The edits are seen on Wikipedia.com here and here, and they were both made around 6:35 p.m. ET, when “The Colbert Report” tapes in New York.
–Read more here: Can Wikipedia Handle Stephen Colbert’s Truthiness?
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